


She's Got You in the Palm of Her Hand

by mysterycultist



Category: Star Trek, Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: F/F, Female James T. Kirk, Female Spock, Serial Killers, The Silence of the Lambs basically, and the romulan plot hole gets fixed
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-17
Updated: 2017-12-27
Packaged: 2019-02-14 11:19:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 9
Words: 8,167
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13006674
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mysterycultist/pseuds/mysterycultist
Summary: In her third year at Starfleet Academy, Spock drifts from the science track and finds herself ensnarled in criminal psychology. About to enter Starfleet Intelligence, she's asked to interview a notorious serial killer--"Captain" James T. Kirk--who may know something about the string of murders that has traveled across the Federation and finally hit a Starfleet Captain. The place where it hit her was her stomach, straight through past her spinal column.What she's really trying to discover is the solution to her own test, the no-win scenario that comes to her from behind a thousand masks, at every venture, at every turn.





	1. Dossier: James T. Kirk

_[Gov. Co_ _ry’s log,_ _stardate_ _2255.3. Transcription.]_  

_Dr. Co_ _ry: Okay, Jim. If you don’t want to talk about Pike, let’s talk about someone else._  

_James Kirk: Someone else I’ve transgressed against?_  

_D_ _C:_ _If that’s what you want to talk about._  

_JK_ _: If that’s what you want to talk about then it’s what I want to talk about, and since you want to talk about what I want to talk about you want to talk about—_  

_DC_ _: Jim, I have a migraine. Please go easy._  

_JK: Oh, yeah. Of course,_ _Don_ _, why didn’t you say so? Anyway,_ _Garth._  

_DC:_ _Garth._ _How did you transgress against Garth?_  

_JK: Well, jeez, Doc, I told him to kill himself_ _one day_ _and_ _the next day_ _he did._  

_DC:_ _Jim, you_ _haven’t had any verbal contact with anyone outsi_ _de of this room in over a year. Are you suggesting that you convinced someone to take a message to Garth, or that you developed telepathy?_  

_JK: I don’t know, Doc. I guess I’m just blowing smoke up your ass._  

_DC: Jim. You know I can’t just_ ignore  _this. You know if you clam up now I’m going to have your room stripped._  

_JK: Aw, man. Alright, alright. I’ll talk. Marcus._  

_DC: Marcus? There’s no one named Marcus here._  

_JK:_   _Burke._ _What?_ _Don, Don, where’re ya_ _goin_ _’?_  

_DC: I’m not listening to any more of this without your lawyer, Jim!_  


	2. Future Starts Slow

Something about the smell of Elba II makes Spock regret not putting on gloves this morning. 

In her left hand is a Padd, which she's been instructed, repeatedly, not to allow Kirk to breath upon. In her right hand is a stack of paperback books—two early Earth novels, but after that a selection of specially-printed texts in and out of translation on philosophy, technology, current events—which she  _i_ _s_ to give Kirk. 

"Maybe it'll put you on her good side," one of the orderlies suggested. 

"Ha!" Governor Cory countered. 

Perhaps it is illogical to blame the smell, because the air is absolutely clean, almost uncomfortably so. Spock imagines that, with the tons of toxic atmosphere bearing down upon them in clouds like roiling mountains outside, the asylum staff would find any off scent in the air unsettling, to say the least. 

As the locks roll into place behind her, she considers them: the locks over the locks over the forcefields over the atmosphere. Even in a creature like her—in a creature like her father, even—the assurance that the place where you live is inescapable, unconquerable, must be an incredible weight. 

There is a noise behind her, and she turns to see the human orderly tapping on the glass. 

"I put a chair outside her cell." 

Indeed, there's a folding chair at the end of the long, white hall. Kirk is the only prisoner housed in this section of the penal asylum, but the hallway was designed to grant some illusion of privacy. There are no opaque doorways on Elba II. 

When she reaches the chair, and the double-layered forcefields it faces, she gets the first look. 

James T. Kirk, twenty-two, is laying on her bunk with her bare feet crossed at the ankles and a book whose cover reads, in bold,  _ON THE RIGHTS OF IMPRISONED PERSONS,_ displayed flagrantly over her face. This is a tableaux so true to her file that it borders on caricature.  

Spock sits down, and after turning the page, Kirk peaks out from behind her book. 

"Oh, shit," she says, and sets it down completely. 

"Hello, Miss Kirk." 

James Kirk sits up, and her hair falls into her face. Spock notes that it's buzzed trim at the sides, which means that she's been allowed a razor but not the pomade that photographs prove her to have been accustomed to in her prior life.  

Spock clears her throat, realizing at once that she would have to hold the books until whatever time the orderlies found it appropriate to lower the secondary forcefield. After a moment of dumb hesitation, she sets them down on her knees and uses her free hand to activate the Padd. "I am Spock, here on behalf of Starfleet Intelligence. I have come to ask--" 

"That's Captain." 

"Excuse me?" 

"Captain Kirk, thanks." 

Spock allows herself a half-smile. She's grown much less resistant to them, since moving to San Francisco, and by now she rarely feels like her older brother when she puts one on. They're too useful to reject. She taps the Padd. "I do not believe you are qualified for that title, Miss Kirk." 

Kirk waves her hand. "Doctor Kirk, then." 

Spock lets the smile hold. She glances at her open files. "It says here that you have an eleventh grade education, Miss. Once again, I believe you are unqualified." 

She shakes her head, hangdog. "That's a lie. Your files are wrong." 

"Are they?" 

"I never finished eleventh grade.” 

“My apologies.” 

“It just feels a little, I don’t know—juvenile? I mean, at this point. After six different Fleet Admirals shake your hand and call you Captain, one after the other..." She taps her chin. "What's your rank—what'd you say your name was?" 

"I am Cadet Spock, Miss Kirk. From Starfleet Intelligence." 

Kirk snorts, surprised. "Oh, Cadet Spock. Excuse me." She salutes, insincerely. But with good posture. "Working on a paper?" 

"Yes," Spock lies. 

"Oh, good. You know, when they put that chair out, I thought you'd be my  _brother_  or something." 

"George Kirk Junior lives on a colony in this sector. Does he visit often?" 

"Of course not, he hates me." 

Spock taps into the Padd. 

"What, you're not recording? You’re shorthanding this?” 

She turns the Padd over and holds it up to the forcefield. “Do you recognize this man?” 

First Kirk’s blonde eyebrows jump, then they draw close as she stands, one foot swung after the other, out of the bed and steps closer, closer, closer— 

_BZZZZ!_  

The alarm starts Spock, but doesn’t make her jump—and suddenly, the forcefield is gone. 

Governor Cory's voice rings in her ears:  _Remember that release form you signed before I beamed you down here? This is the most secure penal colony in the Federation. But that's what they said about Elba I, too—and where's Elba I now?_  

Kirk’s mouth is open—pink tongue over pink tips, tracing the edges of her teeth. She’s standing, Spock is still sitting, her arm extended—millimeters from Kirk’s unadorned, square hands, as she raises them forward to— 

Kirk taps on the primary forcefield, just in front of the Padd screen. “That’s not him.”  

“It looks like him,” Spock says. 

Kirk’s blue eyes flick down to her. “Hey. Get your hand off that phaser.” 

Spock adjusts her belt and jacket, as if that had been her intention all along. It so obviously wasn’t that she’s embarrassed. 

“Rude. You’d just hurt yourself, anyway,” Kirk says, and knocks on the primary screen again— _BRING! BRING! BRING!_  

Spock retains enough control not to throw the books on the floor. She sets them down. 

As the secondary field pops up, Kirk turns her back and says, “Hold on, you have my attention, just let me do something.” 

She picks up her metal table, and like an imperfectly stunted Macedonian phalanx, carries it over with four legs pointed at Spock. Spock watches this, the strange and haunting absurdity of this image—the blonde girl-killer as some kind of brutalist tortoise hobbling along on its back—and the seconds seem to stretch on forever. The primary vanishes. 

She reminds herself why she is here, what her mission is. Her mission is to fill the gap in her life that was left when she became too good at chess to enjoy it anymore. 

Kirk sets the table down, four cracks and a loud shriek wobbling against the field, holds up one finger, and drags over a chair for herself. 

“Nice, right?” She crosses her legs, settles her elbows in on the tabletop. “At the Riverside jailhouse they’d nail this shit down. Here? What’s the point, right?” She hooks her bare foot around the stack of paperbacks and slides it in just as the primary field flashes back into being, so close to the table’s edge that the space between them may not exist. 

“This man is not Nero, captain of the Narada,” Spock reminds her. “But he looks like him, does he not?” 

“Yeah,” Kirk says, and does her best to press her nose to the image. 

The image is of a tattooed man, apparently Vulcan, bald, from one of the exterior security cameras at a resort on Risa where Captain Jane Harriman was staying, moments before she was murdered. 

“You think I care about this,” Kirk surmises ruefully. 

“Because this may be one of the men responsible for the destruction of the  _Kelvin_?” 

“Maybe, maybe not. Could just be a freak with a niche interest playing dress up.” 

Spock nods. “He very well could be.” 

Kirk makes a face. “I don’t really care about the  _Kelvin_.” 

She follows Spock’s eyes up, to the drawing on the wall behind her: a massive, obsessively detailed diagram of the USS  _Kelvin._  

_“_ That’s incidental.” 

“Whether or not the fate of the  _Narada’s_ crew interests you, I did expect you to be interested to learn that you have a copycat.” 

Kirk clears her throat. “I guess that would be pretty hard, because I never had a signature.” 

“Oh,” Spock says. “But you did.” 


	3. Dossier: Cadet Spock, S'chn T'gai

_This is_ _the Vulcan_ _Transplanetary_ _Access Network_ _, live with simultaneous translation, closed caption, and closed caption-transliteration. I am_ _T’Dess_ _._  

 _On tonight’s program_ _,_ _we continue our series on Vulcan students abroad._ _I will be interview_ _i_ _ng_ _Cadet_ _Spock, a_ _student at_ _Starfleet_ _Academy_ _and the daughter_ _of_ _Sarek_ _, Ambassador to Earth_ _._   _Cadet Spock is notable for programming_ _a tactical simulation_ _called the ‘Kobayashi_ _Maru scenario,’ which has created much discussion in the field._ _Starfleet_ _has, additionally, indicated interest in using it as a mandatory examination for students in the command track. Cadet Spock, what is your year of study?_  

 _Spock: I am completing the third year of my undergraduate studies._  

 _T’Dess_ _: What is your field of study?_  

 _Spock: Computer sciences. I am, however, transferring to the School of Behavioral Sciences for my senior year. This will make completing my degree more difficult, but_ _as a result_ _I will be better_ _prepared to study behavioral sciences as a graduate._  

 _T’_ _D_ _ess_ _: Most Vulcans would pursue_ _their interest_ _in computer sciences to satisfaction before choosing a new career path. Was your decision_   _influenced by the popularity of the Kobayashi Maru scenario, was it motivated by the limitations of yo_ _ur insecure lifespan, or neither_ _?_  

 _Spock: Neither._  

 _T’D_ _ess_ _: If_ _so_ _, then what_ _did influence_ _your decision_ _?_  

 _Spock: Though the interest that the Kobayashi Maru scenario sparked was encouraging,_ _it was the chal_ _l_ _enge of creating it that led_ _to_ _my decision to change career paths._  

 _(_ _Cadet Spock achieved the rank of Grandmaster in the Federation’s_ _Tridimentional_ _Chess Association last year. Since then, she has announced her retirement from competitive gaming_ , _calling it “dissatisfying”_ _._ _)_  

 _T’D_ _ess_ _: Could_   _your decision have anything to do with your reported dissatisfaction with_ _tridimentional_ _chess_ _?_  

 _Spock: To clarify, I never said that the game itself was no longer_ _stimulating_ _. I was referring to the competition. Fortunately, competitive chess was not such a major focus of my life that my exit from it left a great hole to fill. You are not incorrect in your inference that the two choices are connected, however._  

 _T’Dess_ _: Please elaborate._  

 _Spock:_ _It is the same curiosity that chess sparked in me that I pursue in the behavioral sciences. I hope to enter_ _Starfleet_ _Intelligence’s interplanetary crime division upon graduation, so that I may study the minds of those who would keep their thoughts concealed, and test my own against them. I further believe that I will be able to contribute admirably to the Federation and its inhabitants in this way._  

 _T’_ _Dess_ _: An admirable goal._ _Several_ _years ago, you were the subject of much discussion when_ _you accused the Vulcan Science Academy's admissions board of discrimination. Have you found_ _Starfleet_ _to be satisfactorily impartial?_  

 _Spock:_ _My words and actions were dissected in the press to the point of_ _incomprehensibility. I will not attempt to_   _explain myself again here. I am quite satisfied with_ _Starfleet_ _._  

 _T’Dess_ : _Indeed. Your choice seems fortuitous in any case, as_ _a transfer of studies as drastic as yours would not have been so simple had you studied at the VSA. Your sister, Michael_ _Burnham_ _, has also fo_ _und_ _Starfleet_ _receptive to her particular_ _skills and abilities._  

 _Spock:_   _Lieutenant_ _Burnham_ _is my foster sister._  

 _T’D_ _ess_ _: Of course._  

 _This concludes_   _my interview with Cadet Spock of_   _Starfleet_ _Academy. I am_ _T’Dess_ _, with the Vulcan_ _Transplanetary_ _Access Network._  


	4. You're In Trouble

Spock travelled three days to reach this planet from Earth. In that time she read James T. Kirk’s entire file and many supplementary articles, and played seven games of Tridimentional chess. She plays chess to control her blood pressure, which is one of the minor health concerns she has because of her unique heritage and imperfect study of the kolinahr.  

James T. Kirk was captured thirteen months ago in a stolen Starcraft after a six-day chase. She was fleeing authorities because of a mistake she’d made at a dinner party she’d thrown for the board of directors at the Cerberus Federal University, where she had served as a teaching fellow for six months in the history department. Her mistake was not serving them the missing Professor of Colonial Ethics in a well-appreciated roughspun chili and a series of “pulled-pork” sandwiches, nor was it using 55 low-level stun shots of her phaser to trigger a fatal heart attack in her department head later that night.  

Her mistake was telling the truth. When a young woman arrived as the unexpected date of one of her guests, James T. Kirk took her aside and suggested, strongly and repeatedly, that she leave. Unfortunately, this woman was a police officer. 

Such is the character of James T. Kirk, something that, through her various identities, has remained quite whole and consistent. Which is what makes it quite a simple thing to understand that, despite the personal motivations behind most of her murders, James T. Kirk cannot be understood as a serial killer unless you understand her first as a political assassin. 

“That is my meaning, Miss Kirk. Your murders followed a sort of logic that one who was not looking wouldn’t necessarily detect, because in form and style they seemed to be so personally satisfying, so cruel and meaningless. The murders I am investigating have, I believe, a similar logic behind them.” 

“You’re spinning my head in circles.” Kirk, mouth ever-so-slightly agape and leaning hard on her elbows all the time Spock spoke, now twirls her index finger in the air and wobbles her head around. Crazy eyes. “Are you telling me this guy’s, like, injecting air bubbles into their blood stream sometimes and stabbing them with beer bottles other times?” 

“Would you like to talk about you, Miss Kirk?” 

She sniffs, settles back. “I guess you can talk about whatever you want. It’s not like I can go. I might fall asleep though, I dunno.” 

In fact, Spock didn’t need to spend her time in transit studying James T. Kirk, because she had learned all of it in her free time some months ago. She did it to control her heart rate, which sometimes fell so low, due to her imperfect meditation technique, that she felt she was already dead. 

“You are aware that your deliberate subversion of classification categories has caused much discussion in the field. Most experts are agreed that what you did was deliberate subversion, and I agree. You alternated between specific patterns—the forced aneurisms on people with which you'd created romantic relationships—and seemingly random acts of violence—the murder of the Karidian Company of Players after their performance of  _Antigone_. Of course, on closer inspection, all of your victims prove to be connected, however tangentially, to the Tarsus IV massacre, with an ever-decreasing number of exceptions. Your intention seems to be to disguise your motivation, and that has puzzled me." 

"Hm?" 

"Most who kill for a cause want it to be known. They kill to make a statement, to set an example." 

"Huh." 

"It occurred to me, though, that you weren't performing these killings, or assassinations, with just one goal in mind. Whatever you did with your life had to be complex, far-reaching, because you have a wide range of interests and talents—and you value your talents highly. You couldn't act the way you did if your ego was also simply part of the act. You had to believe it." 

"Uh-huh. Hey, can I say something?" 

Spock tenses and untenses her hands around the Padd, and her heart rate begins to go down again. "Of course." 

"I feel like you do this instead of getting off." 

"I do both." 

Kirk blinks, then does something between a laugh and a choke.  

"I think you wanted to smear your father's legacy." 

Kirk seems to chew on this for a minute. She stills, and her square killer's hand relaxes from a fist to a smooth palm over the metal grain surface it rests on. Her fingers stretch out like the points of stars. For an uncontrollable moment, Spock wonders if anyone has ever hit that vein before. She finds it unlikely. 

A careful string of words: "I don't like martyrs." 

"That's curious, because you seem to be making one of yourself." 

"Oooh." Kirk laughs openly, this time, and she says, "You know? You remind me of my ex-husband." 

"I do not believe he qualifies as an 'ex' husband if the marriage was only terminated by his death." 

"C'mon, let my talk about  _my_ husband how I want. I mean, Christ, at least I call him that. Look."  

Kirk smiles, here, looking Spock directly in the eye. In her education, Spock has been thoroughly prepared to feel threatened in this moment—though it is illogical, all things considered, her instructors were not often Vulcan and did not count on logic when preparing their students for the field—because when someone like James T. Kirk makes eye contact with you, she tends to do it to intimidate, to make a threat. Spock senses nothing of the sort in Kirk's gaze now, which is exactly what she expected. 

"I'm going to give you something. Okay, you know what my ex always harped on while I was in jail? Way back when we met. Join Starfleet, be like your father. Join Starfleet, be  _better_ than your father. As if I hadn't heard it a thousand times, right? Sometimes he'd switch it up and be like, 'Join Starfleet like your  _mother,'_ because the man was kind of a pig, but he wasn't a total sexist. Mom didn't really have the impact of Dad, though. Maybe because I knew Mom." 

She rolls her eyes, nods back to her drawing of the  _Kelvin_ on the wall. "But man, what about Dad, anyway? He was captain of a starship for twelve minutes and saved eight hundred lives. Including mine! And not that I'm not grateful, but what'd it really count for? Okay? He saved eight hundred lives because something out there wanted to kill them, and whether or not Dad killed whatever that was, whatever made it, or motivated it, whatever—that didn't die. We don't even know what it is. Follow?" 

"I do not think the argument you mean to make is nihilist." 

"I don't like blunt tools. Look at my record, I never killed anybody by hitting them. All I'm saying is, why would I join Starfleet? So I can die for 'em? You ever heard of Earth Human Jesus?" 

"I'm familiar with the concept of Earth Human Jesus." 

Spock's chair, as it was set out for her, sat at a healthy distance from the forcefield barrier. She felt that this was antagonistic to her purposes, so before she sat down she adjusted it so that she could sit with her knees one inch from the field. 

Kirk leans in so that her nose almost burrs against the static. 

"Jesus Christ was a battered woman." She sits back. "All dying does is make you convenient. Everyone should do whatever they can to not die." 

"Interesting." 

"Except eugenicists." She laughs again. "They can start by offing themselves. Anyway, I'm unprincipled and antisocial. Don't screw over anyone who means well by aligning me with their cause. Other than that--" She waves her hand. "Carte blanche." 

"Mm-hmm. Fascinating as this is, I believe we are off track." 

"Oh, shit? That wasn't enough for you? That was a paper. You got a big ass paper in whatever I just said, trust me." 

Spock flips her Padd for her again. 

"The copycat? That's still a thing?" 

"What you've revealed to me has only strengthened my hypothesis, Miss Kirk." 

Kirk clears her throat again and scrubs at her nose with the back of her hand, and for the first time it occurs to Spock that Kirk is ill—which would be difficult to accomplish, if Spock's understanding of this facility is accurate. 

"So what I'm getting," Kirk says. "Is that this Nero-looking guy is disguising his kills as disorganized, personally motivated murders, but in fact he's been inspired by a close reading of my career to accomplish a large number of political assassinations by not letting anyone know they're political assassinations." 

"His victims aren't obvious. But the connections are there." 

"And I'm connected." She waves toward the screen. "As evidenced by." 

"Yes. Miss Kirk, I would like the chance to clarify something. I will, no doubt, write several papers on this encounter, but my reason for coming here is of much greater importance than that.  I would have you work as a partner in this investigation, to the fullest capacity you can given your geographical restrictions. I believe that your experience and insight, paired with my skill and reasoning, will allow me to—" 

"Cadet. Babe. Slow down. You even got an official reason to be here?" 

"I believe that my rank has lead you to false conclusions about me. I am a graduate student at the Starfleet School of Behavioral Sciences, a highly selective program, and an intern at the Starfleet Intelligence Behavioral Analysis Unit. My direct superior is leading the case, and I am assisting—" 

"Miz Spock, please. Gimme the facts. Have you authorizations, or have you not?" 

Spock imagines a vast, red canyon in time to prevent her from cracking the screen of her Padd with her vice-grip. She takes a moment to look away from Kirk, who is reaching below her table to pick a book off the stack, and down at the blurry bald man on her screen. This also centers her. "Not yet." 

Kirk cracks the spine on  _The Da Vinci Code_ and, tipping her chair back, setting her feet on the table, and resting her head back on her folded arms, sets the book over her eyes to block the light. "I like to waste my time myself, thanks." 

Spock measures a long, deep breath. Then, she begins to laugh. 

She doesn't bother watching, but she hears Kirk's book fall to the floor.  

She holds out, tears beading her eyes, for a ten count. 

"Excuse me," she breathes when she's done, and she smiles at Kirk. "I wanted to assure you that you are quite humorous, and very fascinating. I am so, so grateful for the opportunity to speak with a criminal psychotic as humorous and fascinating as you. Does that please you, Miss Kirk?" 

For a long moment, Kirk looks at her with utterly blank affect. Her chair remains tilted back, her feet on the table, but she holds her head up at attention and her arms are braced at the seat of her chair. Her eyes are wide open. 

Spock meets her gaze, tracks her eyes moving over her body, and the smile seems to evaporate from her lips. The space between her thumb and forefinger tingles as if it would go numb. 

First there is a spark in Kirk's eye, then her entire bearing changes. She sets her hand on her chin and smiles.  

"You're half human, aren't you, Spock?" 

Spock opens her mouth to speak, but she doesn't. 

An emotional reaction must show on her face, because Kirk cringes, and with a  _crack_  of chair legs on the floor, she sets her feet down—A less confrontational posture. "Sorry, really. I didn't do that to make you uncomfortable. I only realized because for a second—wow, this is paranoid—I thought you might be v'tosh ka'tur." 

She pronounces that well. Spock says, "Ah." 

"I honestly don't have anything against them, but—they  _did_ kill my dad! And that made my dad  _very famous._  So it's not crazy for me to watch out, in case someone thinks it'd be cool to finish the job and get a little more publicity for the cause, right? I'm better about it than my mom, she gets itchy around any damn Vulcan. Which is just embarrassing." She clears her throat again, and has to take a moment to cough into her sleeve. "Yeah, but I think I know who you are now, Spock. Sarek's other kid, right?" 

Spock has the illogical urge to pinch herself.  

"You're familiar with my half-brother." 

"I know who he is, yeah. Probably the most popular advocate of the v'tosh ka'tur philosophy alive today, super super controversial figure, and kind of a wild evangelist fugitive, right? But I wouldn't hold your brother's fucked up beliefs against you, Spock." 

"I'm sorry, I did not anticipate this. I admit that I am at a loss." 

"I bet this thing creates a lot of problems for you, huh?" 

"Yes." 

Kirk makes a face. "I really don't like getting the upper hand like this. " 

This is when Spock notices that she's tapping her foot. Kirk is whistling air out through her teeth, gazing off to the side with her neck craned at an angle that must be uncomfortable—all of her tendons stand in stark relief, and she is tapping her foot. On the wall, in the direction in which she is looking, is a black and white square, cut from the carbon paper they use to print her books, on which is printed a photograph of the Andromeda galaxy. 

"Here's a deal," she says, still looking away. "I'm sick. I was a premie, did I mention that? I have more allergies than they have names for, everywhere I go I get a new allergic reaction. There's something in the air here, I don't know, maybe it's a trace from the atmosphere or maybe it's something in the purifiers. Whatever it is, they're saying my reaction isn't bad enough to transfer me to a lower-security facility. Get me a doctor." 

Then, she is looking at Spock again. "Do we have a deal?" 

It takes Spock a moment to realize that she's squeezing the space between her forefinger and thumb. It takes her another moment, after that, to realize that she is smiling. 


	5. Dossier: Nero

**_ Nero (terrorist_** ** _)_ **  

 _ From Memory Alpha, the free encyclopedia. _ 

 _For other uses, see_ _Nero (disambiguation)._  

 **_Nero_ **_was the Vulcan captain of the _ _starship_ Narada _, a vessel of indeterminate origin (_ _possibly a Vulcan-Romulan collaboration), who_ _initiated the_ _attack on the USS Kelvin_   _o_ _n_ _stardate_ _2230._ _04_ _, regarded as an_   _act of terror_ _._ _His whereabout are unknown, and he has been considered a_ _fugitive of Federation law_ _since 2230._  

 

 **_ Origins _ ** 

 _Nothing is known of Nero's origins. On_ _stardate_ _2230.04, the_ Narada  _was detected in a lightning storm-phenomenon 75,000 kilometers from _ _the Federation-Klingon border_ _. There is no record of the ship or its crew prior to this date._  

 _Analysis of the audio-visual contact made with the_ Narada  _over hailing frequencies, which was recovered from_ _local data files onboard the USS_ Kelvin's  _escape pods, showed_ _him to be_ _Vulcan, possibly of the_ _Go'anian_ _ethnic group, with characteristic pointed ears and upswept eyebrows. These, along with_ _unique_ _facial tattoos_ _and other_ _body modifications_ _, were features he shared with the rest of the known crew of the_ Narada _._ _It is theorized that these facial markings are what have caused facial recognition software analysis to be ineffective on the footage._

 

 **_ Political m_** ** _otivations _ **  

 _Nero_ _spoke_ _a bastardized_ _Romulan dialect  _ _during communications with the USS_ Kelvin _'s crew. This has_ _le_ _d_ _many to speculate that he and his crew were acting on behalf of or out of allegiance to the_ _Romulan Star Empire_ _. As_ _there_ _has been no communication between the United Federation of Planets and the Romulan Star Empire since the _ _Earth-Romulan War_ _,_ _n_ _o statement from the Romulan Government has been issued to confirm or deny this speculation._  

 _Because the_ Narada _'s_ _Romulan allegiance remains speculation, the_ Kelvin  _incident is not_ _considered_ _a violation of the_ _Romulan Neutral Zone_ _. No further Neutral Zone incursions have occurred since._  

 _Nero and the other_ Narada  _crew displayed violent emotional outbursts during their contact with the_ Kelvin.  _As emotional reasoning and display is antithetical to_ _Vulcan_ _philosophy_ _and_ _cultural standards_ _, several theories have been postulated as explanation for this behavior._  

 _These explanations include_   _drug use_ _,_   _degenerative disease_ _, and v'_ _tosh_ _k_ _a'tur_ _alignment. The v'tosh_ _k_ _a'tur_ _theory is the only one supported by the_ _Vulcan High Council_ _._  

 

 **_ V'tosh_** ** _k_** ** _a'tur _****_alignment _ **  

 _In the fallout of the attack on the USS_ Kelvin _, the Vulcan High Council issued a statement that, without sufficient evidence, they could not determine the motivations or allegiances of Nero and the_ Narada.  _However, logical analysis of the known evidence led them to believe it likely that they were acting under _ _v'tosh_ _ka'tur_ _influence. This resulted in the_ _v'tosh_ _ka'tur_ _(literally "Vulcans without logic") being classified as a_ _terrorist group_ _._

 

 **_ In p_** ** _opular c_** ** _ulture _ **  

 _See_   _attack on the USS_ Kelvin –  _stage adaptions_ _._  


	6. Dossier: James T. Kirk

_[Transcribed from the personal files of Capt. Christopher Pike. Video_ _stardated_ _2252.04, labeled "Jim's birthday party".]_  

 _James T. Kirk: I'm eating my cake, Chris, lay off! [laughing] Jesus, Jesus, okay. If everybody wants the story, they get the story._  

 _Admiral_ _Westervliet: Finally!_  

 _JK_ _: Shush. Okay. So, my mom gave birth in an escape_ _pod_ _. Everybody knows that part, it's really dramatic, but I think the practical considerations get lost on a lot of people. The only midwife on hand was, you know, an alien. I think_   _there_ _were a couple human med techs there, but, you know—everyone's under a lot of stress! I don't hold it against any of them, by the way, they did great work._  

 _[Muffled laughter and giggling from the guests as Kirk gestures at herself. She pauses to take another bite of cake.]_  

 _JK: I was a_ _premie_ _, too. I mean, what a special nightmare for those poor suckers. But, like, this midwife hands me to Mom, and she's like—It's a boy! Because, like—she doesn't fucking know the difference._  

 _[Louder laughter from the guests.]_  

 _JK: I mean, fair! She wasn't even onboard for the human crewmembers, there was a specialist for that. But she got sucked out a vacuum breach. Anyway, she plops me in Mom's arms, and my_ _mom's_ _on call with my dad who's—like— [laughing]_ _—_ Dying. _And they're crying over how great their little boy is, boo_ _hoo_ _, 'Oh, he looks just like you, George,' all this crap, and they decide to name him after their fathers! Super sweet, right?_  

 _[Kirk pauses for another bite of cake. The guests are_ _quiet_. _Pike places his hand on Kirk's shoulder.]_  

 _JK: Oh, get off of me, this is funny. And then my dad like—fucking_ dies _, like, in a f_ _ucking massive dreadnaught collision. Surprise! But my mom finally has a second to give me a good once-over, and like—oops, it's me. But it's not like she can change the name_ now. 


	7. This Concludes the Interview Portion of the Exam

"Spock, are you all right?" 

Spock coughs pathetically. "I am very ill," she lies to her superior.  _Cough, cough._  

It is a truth universally acknowledged that any interspecies person is in want of a good physician. 

Her parents being who they are, Spock has been in no short supply of the most expert medical doctors on Vulcan and Earth since her conception.  

And she has despised them all. 

She had the best doctors on the planet waiting for her specially when she enrolled at Starfleet Academy, some of them uprooting themselves and their families from the far reaches of the globe to treat her, and study her, in San Francisco. Spock's primary weapon against them was a meticulous diet and exercise, and stringent observance of hygiene rituals. If someone sneezed, she would not hesitate to leave the room for 185 seconds—enough time for the air to filtrate.  

Even then, she is only human-Vulcan. There is one last line of defense against the cutting-edge medical experts, but it's nothing to take lightly, because it means absolute commitment.  

At the beginning of term, Spock came to the understanding that her yeast infection would not, as the old Earth mothers say, go away on its own. To confront Dr. Snorri Fredriksson, foremost experimental xenobiologist of his generation, with this information was unthinkable. 

So it was that Spock came into the acquaintance of one Doctor McCoy. 

"She is manipulating me," Spock says triumphantly before McCoy sticks her with the hypospray. 

"You dumb ass slur," McCoy says, and sticks her again. 

"Which one?" 

"The bitch one." 

"I honestly," McCoy says, and she holds her finger up. Spock watches as her face contorts and her eyes water, and McCoy lifts her arm in an abortive gesture before sniffling, shrugging, picking up a hammer and whacking Spock's knee.  

Spock's leg jumps. So does her eyebrow. "Cadet McCoy, are  _you_ ill?" 

"No, you green fucking Smurfette, I had a tickle. You paranoid bastard, why don't you get more paranoid about sociopaths?  _Honestly,_ Spock, I didn't count you for one of those sex-starved women with the Columbine guy tacked to her ceiling, and I'm  _disturbed_ to see how clearly wrong I've been all this time. Just tell me something now, Spock. When we went to that World War III exhibit together—was that a sex thing?" 

"That was for your edification, Doctor," Spock explains calmly. "Doctor, I am sure that a seasoned country woman such as yourself has the good sense to understand the opportunity I have in James T. Kirk. And, incidentally, I am told that she makes a  _fabulous_  pulled-pork sandwich." 

"Fuck you. Get someone else." 

But Spock can't get someone else, because all of the other M.D.s at Starfleet Academy hate her, just as every other sentient at Starfleet Academy hates her. 

This may sound like a rash and emotional statement, but Spock has tested it with the most rigorous logic, and it is true. 

They hate her because she created the Kobayashi Maru, they hate her because she is a Vulcan, they hate her because her father is a diplomat and they hate her because she is rich. 

Despite all appearances, Leona McCoy does not hate Spock, because she is desperately in love with Spock. This is because McCoy is a lesbian, and she is terminally attracted to feisty girls who will ruin her life. She has the alimony payments to prove this. Dr. Leona McCoy is a pragmatic woman from Georgia, a graduate from the University of Mississippi, who understands Spock as, essentially, a human with a strange and terrible medical condition which arouses endless anxiety in her.  

These are the reasons why Spock chose her, at the beginning of the term, to treat her yeast infection—but more than that, Spock shanghaied McCoy, used her humble Southern ethic to force her to learn everything she needed to know about Spock's unique physiology by making it clear that Spock would sooner die than see any other physician about her yeast infection, and in doing monopolized McCoy's studies to such a point that she had to declare hybrid biology her focus. McCoy is not interested in hybrid biology in the least. This is why she is the perfect physician for Spock. 

"I can offer you money," Spock purrs. 

"Stop that," McCoy snaps, and this is when the drugs hit Spock. 

She is on a starbase one day away from Elba II, sequestered in the private room of the medbay that she's occupied all through the day she's been here, waiting for McCoy.  She's spent the time playing 25 different varieties of solitaire in rapid succession, refusing food or drink so as to appear sicker, and laying flat in bed imagining a future of apathy, darkness, and grass. 

The drugs hit her in the central nervous system, and as she lays down on her cot, McCoy jabs an IV into her arm. 

This is shocking. 

"You need the fluids," she grumbles in explanation, and she steps outside the stylish yellow marbled partition to ask where that food tray's at. 

Spock had not considered herself so far gone. Perhaps McCoy is manipulating her. 

"You are manipulating me," Spock accuses, and McCoy says  _ha!_  

 _"_ The elf calling the ogre green," she sneers. "I walked out on a surgical simulation and got on a fucking space ship because Sarah Wallace told me you had an 'unknown illness, possibly alien in origin.'" 

That conversation had gone very well. Spock tends to lie by misrepresenting the truth, because she follows the Vulcan way. Her conversation with Admiral Wallace, however, had been purely dissembling, but Spock was even able to use the physical symptoms of the distress this caused her to build her case. 

"Did something happen on Elba II, Spock?" Admiral Wallace had asked her. 

"Yes. One of the inmates spat on me," Spock had croaked stoically. 

"On Elba II?" 

"Yes." 

If Admiral Wallace retained doubts as to the physical possibility of this, Spock appeared genuinely ill enough that she did not voice them. 

"I concede that my methods were crude," Spock tells McCoy. She places her unimpaled arm over her eyes, because whatever drugs McCoy has administered her are upsetting her sense of balance. "But I could not expect Admiral Wallace to support my plan. She was explicit in her instruction that I not agree to any of James T. Kirk's requests." 

"Oh, is that because she killed two dozen people in a three-year span by  _manipulating_ them?" 

"No. It is because she killed Admiral Wallace's sister." 

"Oh," McCoy says. "How unreasonable of her, then." She has rolled up her sleeves, as if she is prepared to slice open Spock's abdomen at a moment's notice and plunge in, and is rooting through the drawers of her side table. 

"I know that your intention is sarcasm, but the conflict of interest is not lost on me. It is reflective of a deeper trend of nepotism in Starfleet's administration that all of us should find deeply troubling. For example, both Admiral Wallace and her sister achieved high-ranking positions in Starfleet after the latter's marriage to Alexander Marcus, who is currently the head of Starfleet. I have even discovered that James T. Kirk's application to Starfleet Academy was pushed through almost to acceptance before it was withdrawn, despite her record of incarceration and poor academic history." 

"Thank God," McCoy says, and slams a drawer shut. Spock peeks out from under her arm to see McCoy tearing open a package of crisped Andorian tuber root, which she then tosses onto Spock. Several crisps spill out onto her chest, leaving crumbs. "Eat this." 

"Do I not have a meal on the way?" 

"Yeah," McCoy says. "But I'm not sure you have time to wait." 

Spock finishes chewing her crisp, and then says, "What?" The word strikes her as alarmingly difficult to pronounce. 

"Yeah," McCoy says. "As your physician, I've decided that this, whatever this is, isn't in the best interest of your health. I gave you an extra-strength dose of sedative." 

"That is  _not_ your decision to make, Doctor." Spock sees red, which she tries to transform into a vast red canyon, but she finds her mind too swimming to control. "You—you unprincipled—dissembling— _hick._ " 

"Ha! Did your mama teach you that word, princess?" 

"I am  _not_ a princess," Spock gasps. She forgets, in her intoxicated panic, that "princess" is not nearly so damning an epithet on Earth. 

"You're a princess, all right. A spoiled rotten Vulcan princess." 

The last thing Spock remembers is lifting her grasping hand for McCoy's throat. 

When she awakes, she is on a transport back to Earth. The computer tells her that it is eight hours since she was last conscious—enough time that the starbase is no longer visible from her view port. An ancestral panic, passed on in her genetic code via her mother, fills her. She feels that she would sooner eject without an airsuit than set foot on that blue hell again, even once more again. 

She is on a hard little seat with a pillow under her head, and McCoy is on the other side of the cabin, buckled upright with her arms clasped around her body, her head drooling on her shoulder, and a ferocious expression on her helpless sleeping face. 

Spock takes the last path open to her. She calls her father and has McCoy assigned an internship at the Elba II Penal Colony. 

"My father thinks very highly of you," Spock explains gravely several hours later. "Because of your careful attendance to my health." 

"I'll kill you," McCoy says. Because she cannot turn the internship down. 

McCoy may be a licensed M.D., but she is only a freshman at Starfleet Academy, with no offworld experience whatsoever. This is why she had to attend the Academy in the first place to escape her terrible divorce—internships, let alone jobs, are hard-won by the most hardened space-travelers at a facility like Elba II.  

It is an offworld posting. It is an environment more deadly, possibly, than uncharted space. 

“No,” McCoy says. “I’ll really kill you.” 

“You’d lose your license.” 

“I’ll hire Kirk to  _kill_ you. I can’t believe you’re doing this. I can’t believe this!” 

Spock is sipping a nutritional protein smoothie through a straw, and she sets this down so that she can clasp her hands over her crossed knees. The stars, reeling back toward Elba II, shine through the window behind her and cast strange light on the wall where McCoy is pacing, shaking her fists. 

“I do not believe you understand the situation. It is not on a whim that I do any of this.” 

“My problem isn’t with your  _whims.”_  

“I believe you are under the impression that I enjoy lowering myself in your opinion, abusing our relationship, and doing the same to my father. I do not.” 

She takes another sip of smoothie to give McCoy a chance to interrupt her. McCoy, lips pursed, does not. 

"James T. Kirk is manipulating me, which means that she believes I can be valuable to her. So long as she believes that, she  _will_ cooperate with me. And that is imperative. Because I do not believe that I can stop this killer alone, and I do not trust anyone but myself to solve it. " 

"Narcissist." 

"I anticipated that remark, Doctor, and perhaps it is true. But what concerns me is that I am the only one to take the connection between Kirk and this killer seriously in the way that logic dictates, and that those responsible for this investigation refuse outright to consider many logical deductions just because they are uncommon, or inconvenient. People have been killed. People will be killed again. I do not risk my career with insubordination for my vanity." 

She looks up to see McCoy looking hard at her. 

"Spock. Do you know what I was going to say, before you cut me off to monologue? You have a god complex! That's what's pissing me off, Spock, the fact that you think you have to control everyone around you, and we all just have to learn to accept it. Like you have! Well, I don't accept it, Spock. It's bullshit.  _This..._ This is still bullshit, Spock." 

And with that, McCoy leaves to talk to the pilot. 

In fact, Spock’s father said something quite similar to her in the halls of the Vulcan Learning Center, many years after it had been bombed for her sister’s sake, many years after they had upgraded to high security for Spock’s sake for what proved to be no reason at all. He said to her, “Spock, we are not like God.” 

He spoke of the reason for her existence, the thing that had brought him to Spock’s mother. Sarek was brought up in the monastic tradition of Khomi, where the cultural logic did not conform to that of the mainland, and so was brought up in the tradition of ancient Vulcan religion so as to better understand his people and himself. 

The Vulcan gods are many, terrible, and cruel. Spock’s father spoke of one to her because the one God of her mother’s upbringing, the one so evocative to Sarek as a young man, studying her people, was more familiar to Spock. The human Abrahamic god’s striking assonance with the gods of his youth drew Sarek to Earth, but clearly the points of difference between them had become vague to Sarek in that moment, because at the very beginning of the holy text he evoked is a clear contradiction to his sentiment. 

All one has to do to be like God, the serpent says to Eve, is to possess within oneself the knowledge of good and evil. After that, all that bars one from equality with the divine is the certainty of death.


	8. Dossier: Cadet Spock, S'chn T'gai

_Incident Report Summary:_

_On 2241.09.15, a group of three students approached S'chn T'gai Spock at her learning pod at the commencement of meal hour. The students and the mother, Amanda Grayson, are agreed that this has been their custom since the beginning of the academic season. The group of students proceeded to recite verbal triggers with the intent to provoke an emotional response in Spock._

_The Academic faculty and the parents had been aware of this behavior, but had agreed it best to let it run its course in the hopes of acclimating Spock to Vulcan socialization. This has been a persistent issue in her learning plan since she was enrolled at the ShiKar Vulcan Learning Center._

_A similar strategy was employed with the student's foster sister, Michael Burnham, to overcome her social ostracization during the time that she was a student at this institution, and it was successful._

_After one of the antagonistic students physically provoked Spock and referred to her mother with an offensive Terran epithet, she was observed exhibiting heavy breathing and displayed a smile. The antagonistic students made consensus that this was sufficient emotional response, later claiming to interpret the smile as like the submissive displays of prey animals, and exited the Learning Center without Spock._

_There was no further contact between the students until the next day. On 2241.09.16, Spock waited for the student who had physically aggressed her, Dvir, on the walking-path to the VLC from the student’s home. From the head of a sculptural rockface, Spock dropped a large stone onto Dvir’s head, rendering her unconscious. Spock then left Dvir where she lay and proceeded on to the VLC. She alerted no one to Dvir’s injury, and the child may have remained there in the wilderness for hours if an anonymous student had not witnessed the attack from farther down the walking-path, presumedly unobserved._

_When interviewed, Spock claimed that she did not remain silent for fear of punishment, but only for fear of detection._

_While direct physical confrontation is not an unknown phenomenon in youth socialization, this degree of premeditated assault with what appears to be the intent to, if not kill, then severely injure, is not something this instructor nor any of the other regulatory staff at the Vulcan Learning Center have ever observed. We are recommending Spock for immediate expulsion; barring this, she should be suspended from the Vulcan Learning Center for a minimum of one academic year until such a time that thorough psychological examination can prove her to be significantly recovered from whatever behavioral disorder she is currently exhibiting._


	9. Dossier: Dr. Leona McCoy

_Interviewer: Well, Dr. McCoy, I don’t think I’m getting ahead of myself by saying that you are a stand-out candidate for Starfleet Medical._

_McCoy: Why, thank you, ma’am._

_Interviewer: There’s just one last question, and then the interview section’s done. You should hear back pretty quick once I submit my report, and there might be another short verbal examination, but what you really have to worry about is getting your drug tests in on time. [laughing] But I’m sure you know all about that._

_McCoy: [laughing.]_

_Interviewer: All right. How would you describe space in ten words?_


End file.
